The Boggart
by Alquamor
Summary: We all know about the Gryffindor Boggarts, but what about the other houses? Specifically, Slytherin. Warning: Contains pro-Slytherin sentiment and mild language. Please R


Disclaimer: As a minor, I really _can't_ own anything, can I?

I don't think anyone expected it, least of all myself.

The school had been buzzing with the description of Snape dressed in drag, so we all knew what lay in store for us that Wednesday afternoon. We were nervous, we were all nervous, although we hid it well, as we always do. No one in the house wanted their fear revealed for others to see. At least, as Blaise pointed out, Defense wasn't a double class. That was the closest anyone came to acknowledging the abject terror that ran through Slytherin house. Ironically, we were afraid mostly of _showing_ that we were afraid. Such is the existence of those who must fight for their lives.

We filed into the classroom even more boisterously than usual. We were trying to keep our minds off it, you see. Then Lupin came in and ordered us out. Yes, ordered. They accuse _us_ of being bigoted, but I know the truth. I didn't start hating Harry Potter until I watched his sorting. It doesn't take an expert lip-reader to distinguish the phrase, "Not Slytherin." You know, I think that they choose most Gryffindors not on the basis of their "daring, nerve, and chivalry" but on how much they hate Slytherin. Not that the other houses are standing in line to kiss us.

So here was another anti-Slytherin bastard, taking us to meet what we actually feared most: the revelation of our fear to the world. He told us that was how it would manifest itself, and I couldn't help but wonder what a boggart would do if your worst fear was a boggart. I knew that was foremost in all of our minds. We soon found that, after a bit of confusion on the monster's part, it went for our other greatest fears. No one, not even a beast that can look into the mind, can fully grasp a Slytherin.

It gave me a twisted kind of pride, watching the boggart transform into a feeble excuse of a fear for Crabbe: a tentacle-covered beast. He overcame it easily, but the next time the thing was ready. Out of practice after battling the shallow Gryffindors, it had now recalled its memories of psychological horror.

After Crabbe came a long string of second-generation Death Eaters, myself not included. For every one, the boggart's form was a different figure, but all were shrouded in long black robes, their faces hidden by expressionless masks, wands raised. Some froze in horror. Others submitted, and allowed the Cruciatus curses to rack their bodies, their resistance to its effects testimony to their experience on the receiving end. All the while the werewolf looked on, almost with indifference, not trying to prevent the curses and only aiding his pupils once they were incapacitated. It was an indifference which my housemates and I know all too well, but which I didn't recognize at the time, not knowing the man's true identity. Hunted and hounded through his life, he has more in common with us than he likes to think.

Two students were left, Pansy Parkinson and myself, and there had been only one successful use of _Riddikulus_. When fear is metaphysical that charm doesn't seem to work, at least not when used in the way that Lupin taught us. It's hard to laugh at a frightening concept, much harder than it is to laugh at a frightening object. The simplest things are the strongest, because there is nothing to take away and adding to them does not change their essence. Perhaps, I thought, the best use of the charm in our case would be to change the essence, not the shape.

I pondered this as Pansy stepped up to face the monster. Its form surprised us all. No figure, hooded and cloaked, no freak of nature stood there. Instead it was a tall, slender young woman with long, flowing dark hair. She was the epitome of beauty, her dark eyes gazing around the room with a startled look. Something in the face looked familiar, though, and slowly the realization dawned upon us. "Pansy?" someone asked. Indeed, it was she, but not as we knew her.

The girl herself, still pug-faced and surrounded by an unruly mop of curly hair, stood in front of the apparition and swallowed. She raised her wand, then cleared her throat nervously. "_Riddikulus_?" came the hoarse whisper, and immediately the form began to shrink, to widen, until there was only an image of the original: fat, ugly, but once again our familiar Pansy Parkinson.

The boggart "defeated," as it were, only I remained. My father – how could I change the essence of my father? I couldn't. I wouldn't have any problems if it wasn't my father… but how would I know that it was my father? What if it _wasn't_ my father? The only way to tell was… to take off the mask… and perhaps, to find someone else there. Yes, the Professor. He would do nicely. At the time, I could not see my head of house in those long robes, with that mark of shame upon his arm. It makes me laugh, sometimes, how foolish I was then. I rolled up my sleeves and approached the thing, expecting an easy battle.

There was a blinding flash of white light. Pain, pain beyond pain, scorched the back of my eyes even through my eyelids. Then it was gone. I opened my eyes and found in front of me a beam of light, intense and white but cold, circling the room. At once, I knew that the roving light was searching, searching for me, and that when it found me it would strip away the shadow around my soul until only I was left, naked and quivering under the harsh gaze of the light. I stumbled, thrust forcibly back by the realization, and the beam of light swept over me, missed me, continued with its search. Everyone was looking at me strangely. They didn't seem to grasp the horror of the light. How could they? It wasn't searching for _them_.

My back against the wall, sinking down to my knees, unable to support my own weight, I tried desperately to raise the wand that hung useless by my side. I failed. But what would I have done, even had I been able to cast _Riddikulus_? It was a beam of light, immaterial. I'm surprised that I was able to overcome it at all.

Professor Lupin sighed after a while of this, and made as if to attract the beast's attention to himself. Then something snapped inside me. I pushed off the wall, leaving my wand on the ground behind me. Interest perked among the rest of the students, I'm sure. I had gained a reputation for unpredictability over the years. Confronting a boggart without a wand, they probably thought, was the stupidest thing yet. I really don't know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking at all, when I pushed Lupin roughly to one side and faced the creature as it swiveled closer, attempting, I think, to deter me. I had gained some sort of power, as evidenced by the fact that I, a scrawny third year, had practically thrown my teacher across the room.

I walked steadily toward the boggart, which glowed brighter and brighter with its cold white light and began to pulse, then fixed its beam on me. As I had known would happen, it stabbed through me. I have known ex**cruci**ating pain, but it does not compare to that caused by this simple light, which cut away the flesh of my chest, layer upon layer, to reveal my heart and my lungs. Those vital organs in its grasp, it threatened to crush them and make an end.

Instead, half in a dream, I put my foot directly above the source of the light and stepped. It went out. A hissing liquid escaped from under my boot, and I found that my heart was still in place, covered by my chest. It had been an illusion. 

Professor Lupin looked at me in shock as applause began to fill the room. Too exhausted to speak, I went back to the wall, picked up my wand, and left the classroom. I later learned that he used a memory charm on the rest of the class. Cowardly, Gryffindor thing to do. He didn't want anyone to know that there was a second way to overcome fear, besides laughter: by destroying it. I don't blame him. Rumor spread around the school that I was afraid not of a piercing light, but of the Light. They meant the "good side," and said that I had been paralyzed by my terror. Even the Slytherins, who had been there, believed it: they could only remember the first half of my ordeal. Well, it's not true. I alone of all the school conquered my fear, rose above it. And now, nothing can stop me.

- Former Minister for Magic Draco Malfoy, from a parchment recovered after his death.


End file.
